Ash Wednesday..a bit too early! Yep, when we got up this morning we were shocked to find a fine layer of ashes all over the boat...damm big city pollution???? NO! not at all...vulcanic ashes! The newspaper had a first page photo of people in Guadeloupe walking around with umbrella to protect themselves from falling ashes of the nearby Montserrat vulcano. Martinique not being very far also found itself under a very fine layer of ashes...It has covered the inside and outside of the boat and we try to clean up as much as we can but the cloud of ashes is at about 50,000 feet altitude and may remain over the Montserrat surrounding islands for a while...

MVO Director, Dr. Paul Cole confirmed this afternoon that the activity at the Soufriere Hills Volcano, which began at about 12.35 p.m. peaking at about 13.04 hrs. with pyroclastic flows. “What has actually happened today, was a ‘major’ event,” Dr. Cole said.
He noted that part of the significance of today’s event is that the dome which has a mass “in the region of 250 million cubic feet,” lost in the region of 20 per cent or 50 million cubic feet of dome material.”
No inhabited areas on Montserrat were affected by the resulting ash clouds from this event which travelled out towards Antigua and this drew an urgent release from LIAT which advised, “that it has been forced to suspend flights into and out of Antigua because of airborne ash clouds from the Soufriere Hills Volcano in Montserrat.”

The release said: “Passengers on LIAT services, particularly to and from Antigua, Anguilla, Dominica, St. Kitts, Nevis, St. Maarten, and Guadeloupe are advised to expect a disruption in services,” as they apologized for any inconvenience caused.

At about 6:00 p.m. the scientist was reported as saying that there was still a lot of ash being generated from rock falls and from the scar made in the dome by the activity. He said that it was still possible that there could be decompression explosions following the event.

Cendres Sur La Martinique
Vendredi, 12 Février 2010 21:24
Le nuage de cendres, issu de la Souffrière de Montserrat, a vogué jusqu'à nous porté par le vent. Ce matin, une fine
couche de cendres recouvrait pratiquement tout en Martinique. Végétaux, voitures, maisons.

Voila la raison pour laquelle notre bateau est recouvert de cendres...nous avions blame la pollution de Fort de France mais c'est en voyant la premiere page du journal FRANCE ANTILLES que nous avons "clique": le volcan de Monserrat! L'eruption n'a heureusement pas fait de victimes ...meme si le phenomene a dure une heure et a vu le dome du volcan s'effondrer...trop de pression! Nous esperons que ce nuage de cendres qui se trouve a 50,000 pied de hauteur se fasse tres bientot balyer par les vents car l'interieur et l'exterieur du bateau sont extremement sales...on a pense a recueillir la poussiere, question d'avoir un souvenir !